


Loki and Leah in the Case of: The Pie-Maker's Secret

by andnowforyaya



Category: Journey into Mystery, Marvel (Comics), Pushing Daisies
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Kid Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:38:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a dessert binge after a job well done, Loki and Leah find themselves enjoying the pie at the Pie Hole. They soon discover that not all is what it seems at Papen County's blue ribbon winning establishment, and a distressed request by a persnickety waitress for her gloomy employer simply <em>must</em> be answered. (<em>Journey into Mystery, </em>Kid Loki's run, crossed with <em>Pushing Daisies</em>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loki and Leah in the Case of: The Pie-Maker's Secret

The mouthful was sweet, but not too sweet, the cherries plump and soft and the pie crust just the right side of chewy. The pie had been baked at exactly 425-degrees-Fahrenheit for eleven minutes and then at a reduced heat of 375-degrees-Fahrenheit for another thirty-five, and the lattice-work topping was perfectly golden and flaky and shiny because of the egg-wash that had been brushed and sugar that had been sprinkled over it. Loki grinned around the morsel at Leah, who was eating her own slice of apple pie with cheddar cheese baked into the crust. Her expression was somber, her fork clicking against her teeth, because she was thinking at that moment that she would certainly not find a pie of this caliber back in Broxton, and especially not in the great dirty hole in the ground that the trickster had her call home.

Loki’s own grin diminished at a sudden fleeting thought that crossed his mind: He wanted to bring a pie home with him, but who else could he share it with? Thor would surely be off on some important Earth-protecting adventure, and he could not even imagine how an offering to Sif would go. Perhaps Volstagg.

Meanwhile, the Hel-wolf pup Thori sat outside tied to a sturdy lamppost, breathing smoke at unsuspecting passerby. The passerby probably thought it was just dog-breath, given the chill in the air and the snow underfoot.

It had been a good idea to have Leah transport them to the pie shop in Papen County that had recently won the Blue Ribbon at Papen County’s annual Comfort-Food Cook-Off. Loki had made a list, see, of esteemed establishments with he deemed worthy of experience. On the list also included The Bowery Diner in New York City for their ‘Feel Good Shakes,’ Atlanta’s Cakes and Ale Restaurant for their Apple Crisp, and the S’Mores Milkshakes at Atlantic City’s Izakaya. There were about thirty more desserts on the list, but Loki had chosen one at random with his eyes closed and his index finger.

The pie at the Pie Hole was good, just as Loki was promised it would be by a wayward traveler at their diner in Broxton, but was it ‘to die for,’ and was there none other like it? He had been promised a life-changing experience, with one bite of the Pie-Maker’s pie, and so far he was only feeling that there was something slightly off about the cherries and something slightly off about the Pie-Maker behind the curved counter.

No, not something off.

Something sour.

Loki took another bite, and chewed slowly. “There’s something about the Pie-Maker,” he mumbled to Leah, and at his words they both turned to look at the baker who now was sprinkling flour over the marble counter. He was tall, and slim as a dandelion weed, and the dark colors he wore only accentuated this. One day Loki hoped to be so tall. There was a dusting of flour in his short hair, and a quirk in his lips that could have been the beginnings of a frown or a mark of more permanent dissatisfaction. Loki was working on seeing auras (from the book, How to Read and See the Aura*), and he imagined the Pie-Maker’s aura as a dense cloud above his head, crackling with thunder and threatening with unspilled rain.

Unseen by the children but seen by the Pie-Maker was the golden retriever named Digby who lay on the kitchen floor by the work table. Digby whined; he smelled something unfamiliar in the air. The Pie-Maker thought his friend was hungry, and tossed him a doggy treat he and Olive had baked earlier in a huge batch.

Loki heard the dog's whine, and then he thought: His pies tasted sad.

Leah swallowed and begrudged, “He is disgustingly handsome,” with a light lift of her shoulder.

“That is not what I meant.”

“It must be hard to carry around the burden of being so sweetly attractive.” She sucked on the spoon between her lips thoughtfully. “I think the fact that he provides sustenance to so many on a regular basis only adds to his charm.”

“First Daimon, and now this! I am not disagreeing with you, but that is still not what I meant.” Loki frowned. “I mean, taste this and look at him; doesn’t he feel...sad?” Leah took a bite of the cherry pie Loki was offering, and tasted.

She sighed. Underneath the layers of sweet and tart cherry and buttery crust there really was something else, and something that was amplified when she looked at the Pie-Maker in the public kitchen. He was now rolling out a crust with a large wooden rolling pin. She noticed that the crust was becoming too thin just as he noticed, too, and had to start over. “Too salty,” she said. “Something extra baked into the crust. Sprinkled into the filling. You’re right; he has been unhappy.”

That was when the waitress danced over to their booth, and she kneeled down so that her elbows were on the table and she had to look up at the children. Her smile was huge, and chipper. “How are you cutie-cuties doing?” she chirped. Loki still marveled over how the waitress, donning a tight green dress and a bright spring-green cardigan, could possess completely the opposite personality of his boothmate, who similarly was decked in green. Olive Snook, as the waitress so introduced herself, had flitted from booth to table to booth, waiting on customers as Leah judged her but could not truly judge the pie.

“The pie is marvelous,” Loki said, “but your maker not so. Something ails him.” He nodded toward the man in question, and Olive followed his gaze. She sighed, too, upon looking. The Pie-Maker was rolling out another crust; one roll too many and again it was too thin. He let the rolling pin fall with a heavy thunk to the marble counter and placed both hands flat on either side of the inadequate dough, exhaling. Then, the three at the booth watched as he rubbed both hands into his scalp in frustration - this explained the flour clinging to his hair and at his temples - before he disappeared for a moment to wash his hands.

Olive turned back to the children sharply. “You see it, too?” she asked, just as sharply. The children would soon learn that Olive did not mean for her speech to come out so sharp, but that her voice just naturally fell to a quick staccato rhythm with a tiny Southern twang, and that she always kind of sounded like she should have been narrating the race at a derby. "He’s been like this ever since he went to that cafe across the street. I mean, sometimes he gets like this, like sad face mopey down in the dumps because of his seriously serious daddy issues and inability to touch his girlfriend but it hasn't been as bad ever since Chuck - I mean Kitty - came around. But now she's on vacation for the weekend and he's back to as bad as he ever was." She sucked in a breath in vain, as if she could suck in the words she had just spoken.

Loki processed the spill of information like he was sucking all the juices out of the single, last cherry between his teeth. He had finished the slice of cherry pie on his plate, and eyed Leah’s half-eaten apple pie. She noticed his greedy eyes, rolled her own, took a ridiculous large final bite of her treat, and then pushed the plate over to him. He and Leah had come to try a slice of blue-ribbon pie, but if there was good to be done in the vicinity, Loki thought that perhaps he should try to do it. Besides, the mischievous duo were between good-doing, what with the Fear Crown pretty much taken care of. "Is there anything we can do?" Loki asked, while Leah kicked him under the table, conflicted about wanting to help.

Olive considered the children in front of her and opened her mouth.

The facts were these: two hours, twenty seven minutes, and fourteen seconds ago the Pie-Maker received an anonymous note in the form of a returned pie purchase slip with a request to meet in the cafe across the street. "Meet me in the cafe across the street as soon as you get this," read the slip. "Come alone." It was signed with a single letter, C. The Pie-Maker, thinking that this was his and his beloved's latest attempt at their oft-played game of role-playing, smiled a little smile, and left Olive to mind the Pie Hole for what he imagined would be no more than a few short, wonderful minutes. Chuck had indeed left for a weekend trip to a nearby beach town, her mother-who-used-to-be-her-aunt and her real-life-always-had-been-aunt in tow. They had just returned from a very successful tour around Europe as their synchronized-sister water act, the Darling Mermaid Darlings. Ned imagined for half a second that she could not bear to leave him and had returned at the last minute.

Unfortunately for the pie-maker, the C on the pie purchase slip stood not for Charlotte or Chuck or Charles, but for Cindy. One Cindy Berry, eighteen years old and cute as a button, who still passed for a children's ticket when she and her friends went to the movies. She sipped on her mug of Crazy Campfire Caramel, and passed Ned his own previously purchased and now luke-warm mug of coffee, black. Cindy Berry had a theory, and a recently deceased pet, both of which she wanted to share with the Pie-Maker she had only met once before when she and her friends went in on a whole Georgia Peach Pie. This Georgia Peach Pie had changed her life, she would later say, but what she really meant was that the Pie-Maker's shallow smile had sent her heart aflutter, and that she was hopelessly, helplessly, hooked.

"My name is Cindy Berry, and I have a theory," she announced, her clear blue eyes very bright and unblinking. Ned could tell she was about to share something that she had only recently decided she needed to share after holding it in for a very long time. He should know, since he had felt that feeling a lot in his life. He sat with his hands around the cooling mug, and wished it had been Chuck who had written the pie purchase note, but nodded anyway at the girl in front of him, who reminded him of someone.

"You sound like you want to share," Ned said gracefully, mentally congratulating himself on a job well-done at how nice and welcoming he sounded, despite being the one who had been called out of the comfort of his shop.

"I do," Cindy nodded eagerly, her blonde ponytail bobbing. "And you're just who I want to share it with. You see, my theory pertains to you and you specifically, and also to my dead golden retriever."

Ned gulped on impulse; it was like a great big stone sitting in his stomach was trying to push itself up out of his mouth, along with a manly scream, and so, he gulped to keep the stone where it was, and also the scream. That combination of words was not what he was expecting to come out of young Cindy Berry's mouth. He made a small noise that was not a whimper while he tilted his head to the side in uncertainty.

Cindy Berry took that as a cue to continue. "My theory is that you have a superpower," she said without caution, in listening distance to the next table over, and Ned almost panicked on the outside and reached over to clap his hand over her mouth, but knew such actions could be considered aggressive and wrong, and he was usually neither of those things. To compensate, he panicked on the inside.

"What do you mean, superpower? I mean, isn't that crazy? Because real people don't have superpowers. That's only something that happens in movies, or comic books, and we aren't in a movie or a comic book, we're normal, so superpowers don't exist, and more specifically they don't exist where I'm concerned, because I'm normal, and not crazy?"

Okay, so maybe there was a little outwardly panic, too.

"Don't worry," the girl said sweetly, "I think it's cool that you have a secret superpower that helps you solve murders and bring justice and bake pies at half the price of your competitors. Your secret's safe with me." She winked one blue eye. Ned almost let out a sigh of relief, but again realized that a sigh would only at that moment confirm that he had a secret he did not want Cindy to spill.

"That's good," he said, "especially since I don't have any. Secrets."

"If," Cindy proclaimed, pausing for dramatic effect.

"If what?" Ned asked, feeling the panic rise again.

"I'm pausing for dramatic effect," Cindy whispered.

"It's very effective."

"If you bring back my Candy I won't tell everyone that you're really a necromancer who is living with an undead girlfriend and dog, and by everyone I mean the local news because I've got proof and lots of it."

Cindy was bluffing. She had no proof, but knew she wanted to get some. She also knew she wanted to spend more time with the Pie-Maker at a closer distance, since looking through the viewfinder of her digital camera was growing old. See, Cindy was what one might call a lens-enthusiast. She loved anything that could be seen through a camera lens, which meant she loved most things. But what she loved most of all were romantic movies and supernatural television shows. And here was a man who could play the romantic lead and who had a mysterious supernatural flavor to him, as well! The only problem was that Cindy loved being on one side of the lens so much that she often forgot about the other side completely.

"You're bluffing, and also that doesn't matter because I don't have a secret and if I did it certainly wouldn't be that one."

"You're a horrible liar, Mr. Pie-Maker."

"That's...not my last name."

"I know," she said, "just like how I know Kitty Pims is not Kitty Pims' real name. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's-"

"Okay," Ned did not shout. "Okay, we'll play it your way, for now, but only because Kitty's secret identity is very important to keep secret and not because of some other not-secret, and now I have I find a way to revive your dead dog Candy."

Cindy smirked. She was celebrating on the inside. She was imagining a life with the Pie-Maker like she imagined not-Kitty's was with him, snuggling on the couch with their golden retriever between them, holding hands while reading their latest fictional finds, sharing a slice of Georgia Peach Pie a la mode. "I'll give you until sundown tomorrow. I'll leave you a note written in your Pie Hole window with my breath to let you know where to find me."

It was very romantic, she thought, this method of leaving messages. She had seen it done in a television show.

That was two hours, twenty nine minutes, and four seconds ago, though all Olive knew was that her Pie-Maker left and when he came back he was down and deep and in a funk, and that these kids were sweet out-of-towners whom she would never see again. She didn't see the harm in telling them the truth.

Which is why she said, "You can ask him how he's doing while secretly investigating what happened at the cafe across the street and then you can take care of whatever happened across the street with discretion so that I can continue selling his pies pretending that nothing is wrong. He’s hiding a secret that I’ve been almost-party to many, many times, and I’m dying to know what it is but also trying not to care what it is on account of my fresh start with fresh ideas and a fresh new beau. But there it is and there you have it. I'll give ya each a slice on the house."

"Excellent compensation," Loki returned excitedly. "We'll do it!"

Leah sighed, while Olive double-backed to what she had asked of them. "Wait. I was just kidding, kids."

"Nonsense! This is a mission perfectly suited to us. We have a lot of experience in sneaking. And saving. Usually without any sort of compensation."

"That's cute, kid, but seriously for serious don't do what I said, okay? It could be dangerous."

"That would be preferable," Leah quipped, tapping her fingers along the tabletop.

Olive turned to her and felt a shiver pass up her spine. "Okay, little girl, I'm not going to lie: you are giving me the shivers right now."

Under her breath, Leah muttered, "Such is the burden of being Hela's handmaiden."

"What was that?"

"I said, I'll be right back."

The pint-sized waitress turned to the boy in the booth with a question on her lips, only to find another question quickly replacing it when she discovered him to be gone. "Where did he go?" At Leah's silence she turned the other way again, only to discover that the girl had disappeared, too. There was a single gold coin on the table. There were only a few things in the world which could truly surprise Olive now, so she shrugged, swiped the coin from the table, and turned back to the kitchen. She slipped the coin into her pocket to save for later - another investment in her idea for a future shop dedicated to her third love (after pies and Randy Mann, who only recently deposed her second): cheesy mac'n'cheese.

She found where one of the kids had disappeared off to - the raven-haired boy stood with his hands clasped behind his back next to Ned, who was back to rolling out pie crusts. He hovered close, which she could tell was making the Pie-Maker uncomfortable. “So you’re saying you bake honey into the crusts?” the little boy was asking, his voice just as sweet as the bell that rang over the shop’s door every time it opened.

“Just the cup-pies,” Ned said. “The cup-pies are made by Chuck - I mean Kitty - I mean, who are you again?”

Olive heel-toed around the counter with a tray balanced in one hand and interjected, “Just some little boy who has no business being in the Pie Hole’s kitchen bothering the Pie Hole’s owner and the Pie Hole’s waitress by proxy. Where’s your little friend?”

“He’s not bothering me,” Ned told Olive. “You’re not bothering me,” he told Loki. “But you’re a little boy who wandered in with no parent and you’re not bothering me but your lack of parent is concerning me and also you’re very close to me right now.” He took a step to the side, having rolled the crust on the marble counter to the perfect thickness. He draped the dough over his rolling pin and rolled it out over his next pie: Strawberry Rhubarb.

Olive reached around to grab the boy, to bring him back around to the business side of the counter, but he flinched away.

To Olive, the flinch was an attempt to evade his grasp; to Ned, the flinch was so much more. After an entire childhood of flinching away from physical touch for fear of bringing the dead back to life or the recently alive back to death, Ned knew a lot about flinching, and he knew immediately that the little boy’s flinch was not just a response to Olive’s hand but a real instinct, and it made him sad to think that such a young boy would already have the flee response ingrained in him, whether out of necessity or otherwise. “He can stay,” Ned blurted, to both he and Olive’s surprise.

“Oh,” Olive breathed. “All right. You be good then, kid.” And she walked back out to see what their customers needed.

Which left Ned alone in the back of the Pie Hole with a child. “So,” Ned said.

“So?” Loki repeated.

“What brings you to the Pie Hole?” Ned began to use a fork to seal the edges of the pie together, and the boy watched, licking his lips.

“Your pies brought me to the Pie Hole, but a mystery has brought me to your kitchen,” the boy confessed.

“A mystery?”

“Yes. A mystery involving you.”

Ned unintentionally with intention stabbed the fork into the middle of the pie. Or, his fingers slipped. Today was not his day. “Today is not my day,” he mumbled.

“I’ll have you know, I have excellent hearing.” The boy took the fork out and licked the sticky filling which clung to the prongs. He smiled, satisfied with the taste. “Why is today not your day?”

“No reason, none at all.” Ned laughed weakly. It was unconvincing, most of all to him. “I am the least mysterious person in all of Papen County, except of course when I am solving mysteries with my associate Emerson Cod, private investigator and pop-up book author. Are those the mysteries you're referring to?”

“No, and I love pop-up books, and my name is Loki, and I would like to be of assistance to you.” The boy stretched out a hand. It was gloved, and it had not been before.

“My name is Ned, and I appreciate your offer of assistance but I won’t be needing it because I don’t really need assistance with anything at the moment.” He shook Loki’s hand, and marvelled at the cold that bit into his skin.

“I have a condition,” Loki admitted. “Not serious, though. I know you understand, given _your_ condition, am I right?”

Ned tilted his head. “What--How--?”

Seriously, twice in one day.

“You flinched as soon as I flinched, as though in empathy. You’ve had good reason to avoid touch, too, and you seem...off. Oh dear, I hope that wasn’t offensive,” Loki rambled, still shaking Ned’s hand. “What I mean is that there is something about you that is a little extra. At first my BFF and I thought it was the bleak aura mixed into the crust of your pies, but then we realized it was something more. My friend is magic, you see. And I used to be. We recognize a kindred spirit when we see one.”

This gave Ned pause. Magic? Like his half-brothers were magicians? (Illusionists, really, his mind supplied for him). Or, _magic_?

“I suspect that whatever is troubling you has to do with your, ah, condition,” Loki continued, finally letting go of Ned’s hand. His fingers were like icicles. He had to rub circulation back into them. “Because we liked your pie so much, and because we’re good people, Leah and I would like to help you. Now I realize this is all a bit much, so I thought to, well, _break the ice_ , for lack of a better term, I could share with you a secret, and you could share with me yours. There, instant camaraderie while we sort out the issue!”

“I don’t think it quite works like that,” Ned didn’t quite manage to say. Loki was on a roll.

“My secret I will share with you is this: I am the born-again child guise of Loki of old, only without all the bad parts. I was created as a second chance. Reborn and renewed. My older brother Thor is the God of Thunder and believes in me, though he has a funny way of showing it. Also, I am part Frost Giant, which is why I wear gloves when shaking human’s hands. My touch can cause frostbite.”

Ned couldn’t tilt his head any more than it was already tilted without causing neck strain. “I don’t...believe you,” he cautioned, just in case the kid was delusional.

Instead of throwing a fit or breaking down into tears like Ned was expecting, the boy only smiled wider and said, “Well then I suppose I’ll have to go about making you believe me.” He watched, bemused, as the boy took off the gloves that covered his fingers and placed them in the floured mess of the countertop, not caring about tidiness. He rubbed his palms together, looked around for some reason, and then, his eyes alight, dove for the fruit bowl of strawberries that Ned had recently touched and brought back to perfect ripeness. Ned yelped; he couldn’t help the noise that escaped from him.

All the boy did, though, was touch the metal bowl of strawberries, and then he hooked the same finger that touched over the rim and dragged the entire bowl over. “Observe,” he announced, and tipped the bowl of strawberries over. They rolled out every which way, some taking the plunge over the counter and to the kitchen floor, and Ned gasped upon two simultaneous realizations. The first was that he was reaching for the strawberries that were falling and would upon contact return them to their rotting brown state. The second was that they were all frozen solid.

Then the kid gasped, and Ned gulped, could not look up at the boy who had just shared his secret. His secret was worse, definitely worse, than a boy who could freeze with a magic finger. There was something about bringing the dead back to life and the recently-alive back to dead that was more of an issue than frostbite. The two strawberries in his palm were still frozen, but were now brown, and he stared at them, waiting for the next fall.

It did not come. Loki laughed, and then he said, “Wow,” without any hint of sarcasm. Ned looked up, confused, and met curious emerald eyes. There was no disgust, and no glint of confused anger. No pitchforks and witches burning at the stake. “Cool,” Loki said, and then he laughed again at his own pun. “I knew it! Leah will be so pleased. Her mistress is quite influential in the realm of the dead, you see.”

“I didn’t,” Ned tried, at a loss for words. “I’m not -- what was that?” This was a very new thing. A very, very new thing. So new that a thing like this had never even once crossed Ned’s mind. A frost-giant child? A maiden of the dead? Two children with magic in their eyes and helpful hearts. And Olive, who had no doubt unintentionally gotten them involved. Ned was not very good with dealing with new things. That was usually Chuck’s domain. To break the new thing in, and then ease Ned into it. Like a leather shoe.

“Tell me, Mr. Ned,” Loki pressed, putting his gloves back on and trying to pat away the flour. “Do you consider yourself a necromancer?”

A necromancer? Was that what he was? It sounded infinitely worse than just some guy with a magic finger. But it was true, wasn’t it? He was a being who could bring the dead back to life and drain life from the living. It was an evil kind of magic. Deep deep down in a very deep place in his heart he had always thought this evil kind of magic stemmed from something evil inside of him. Necromancer. “No,” he said with resolve. “I don’t like the labels.”

Loki waved a hand like he was waving away the title. “Me neither, truth be told. I find labels constricting. Good, evil, trickster, liar, thief. So one-dimensional. And yet I consider myself a good trickster and white-liar. Can I finish sealing the pie crust?”

Ned blinked at the non-sequitur and slid the pie over, still reeling on the inside. The kid made quick work of the edges, using a new, clean fork. “I’m not a necromancer,” he told Loki, needing to explain himself. He had only ever told his secret to a few people, one out of necessity and for the sake of a business-venture, and one out of love. This boy provided neither of those things. He was just a boy with a secret of his own. “I’m a normal guy who bakes pies for a living who also wakes the dead to solve their murders and seek out justice for a small amount of gain.”

“You can’t fit that on a business card,” Loki pointed out.

“I have no intention of fitting that on a business card.” Ned took the sealed pie back from Loki and checked the edges. Seeing that the pie was properly done, he walked it over to the oven and placed it in a center rack. The boy stepped back from the heat of the oven.

Loki hummed, a noise he made often when he was fitting pieces of information together like a puzzle in his quick mind. “So you definitely don’t want anyone to know of your power, but you have some associates with whom you have shared this power, for both monetary gain and for - love. You haven’t been quite right after coming back from the cafe across the street, and upon your return you did not share the details of the visit with Ms. Olive, your sometimes confidant and good friend. Neither of your associates who know your secret are with you today - Ms. Olive told us your girlfriend Kitty-Chuck was out of town - and since Ms. Olive does not know what trouble you, I do believe that whatever happened across the street has to do with your secret, with your magical finger.”

Ned’s first thought was that Emerson Cod would have hired this kid in a heartbeat. His second thought made it from his brain out of his mouth. “That was actually really amazing.”

Loki beamed.

“The thing I know about secrets,” Loki continued, “is that there’s usually only two things that someone else will want to do with them. One, they’ll want you to use this secret. Or, two, they’ll want you to do something for them or else they’ll expose this secret, an act which is commonly referred to as blackmail.” He paused when Ned gave no reaction to either of those statements. “Most rarely they will want to do both,” he finished, satisfied when Ned went back to rolling out his pie dough, his motions stiff.

That was when the door above the shop rang, and Leah returned, a very rare smile on her face. “It’s simple, really,” she said when she reached the counter. In a flash Loki was around to the other side, sitting next to his friend. Ned moved more slowly, still wary, after receiving a beckoning hand from both children. He pocketed the rolling pin into his apron and faced them, ducking close when Leah made motions indicating she would whisper. “We just need to find a way to get this mortal Cindy Berry off your back. Scare her off,” she whispered.

“No wonder you look so pleased,” Loki whispered back.

The Pie-Maker righted himself abruptly, suspicion on his features. “How do you know Cindy Berry? How do you know she’s on my back? Er.” He quieted at the strange turn of words.

“I don’t know Cindy Berry, but I know she’s threatening to reveal your secret, and you don’t want that at all.” Leah’s eyes were green, too, but there was something different about them. Something extra, Ned thought, remembering Loki’s words about him. They glowed.

The facts were these: Leah entered the cafe across the street, Espressomething, and immediately cast a spell. This spell acted very much like the fast-forward or rewind button on one’s VCR, DVD, or Blu-Ray player, and Leah rewound frame by frame until she saw the Pie-Maker (his eyebrows and backside were impossible to miss) enter the cafe behind-first, walk backwards to a seat, sit down, and then face a girl opposite.

This girl was what someone other than Leah might describe as ‘cute.’ She had a blonde ponytail and big blue eyes, and little pom-poms on her fur-lined boots. Leah rewound until the girl left, backwards, and the Pie-Maker was alone. The girl sat down in a high seat by the window, and then the Pie-Maker left, too, through the entrance backwards again. Leah paused the scene, snapped her fingers, and played it forward.

She watched the Pie-Maker take a seat at an empty table, rubbing his gloved hands together briskly, the collar of his peacoat turned up against his neck. There was a tiny hint of a smile on his lips, like he was expecting something pleasant. That tiny hint of a smile quickly morphed into a confused yet masquerading-as-neutral quirk of an eyebrow when the girl left her seat at the window to join him. Leah moved closer to the two, and listened.

She listened as Cindy Berry introduced herself to the Pie-Maker, as she twirled her hair around her finger and batted her lashes and told him she knew his secret superpower. She listened as the Pie-Maker denied having any such superpower (poorly, she thought) and then as Cindy Berry sweetly announced her ultimatum. Candy was a dead dog she didn’t want to be dead anymore. The Pie-Maker was a tool she would expose if she didn’t get what she wanted. Personally, Leah was quite disgusted with the whole ordeal.

Even more, the way Cindy Berry was eyeing the Pie-Maker was worrisome. The girl stank of crazy. Leah huffed, satisfied with the turn of phrase she was sure Loki would say was how the teens of the internet spoke. Theirs was a harsh yet colorful language.

Cindy left with a promise to breathe a message into the Pie Hole’s window, and Leah watched the Pie-Maker watch the door after it shut. His expression settled into one of hunted desolation.

She ended the spell, ordered a caramel latte, hold the espresso, and brought her finds back to the Pie Hole.

That was how she knew about Cindy Berry, and how she almost-knew about the Pie-Maker’s secret, and how she came to be sitting on the stool before the counter saying, “It’s simple, really,” with Loki next to her. The Pie-Maker introduced himself as Ned, and she introduced herself as Leah Handmaiden of Hel, which he took with some measure of grace. Loki confessed to her that he had already shown the mortal his frost-giant side, so Ned might have been expecting such an introduction. Nevertheless, Leah felt the need to clarify. “Hel the Mistress, not Hell the place, though the Hel my mistress Hela reigns over is indeed a hell for some.”

“Right,” Ned said, looking white in the face. “Part frost-giant little boy and undead girl. And - is that your dog outside?”

They all looked at Thori outside, calmly tethered to a lamppost, and in that exact moment he decided to growl at a pair of pigeons which had landed nearby, and with that growl came a small burst of flame. “Ho!” Ned called. “Let me guess, fire-breathing dog, what, does he guard the gates of Hell?”

“Hel, not Hell,” Loki said. “I can hear you adding the incorrect number of l’s. And that is quite the good guess! Thori is indeed descended from the Hel-wolf. He’s a good boy, usually.” Thori howled at his name being mentioned inside. Loki chuckled.

A boy with a magic touch, a girl from the land of the dead, and a dog that guarded them. Ned did a head count, and then he did another one. No matter how he counted it, it was the same. Loki and Leah and Thori were so similar to Ned and Chuck and Digby that it hurt a little area of his heart he had sectioned off that held a hope that he would ever find someone like him. Now he had found someone, or someone had found him, and this little section was burning.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, unsure what he was apologizing for, but as usual his lips knew the words before his brain formed them, and his lips said, “This is all a little much, you see. I spent my whole life thinking that I was the only one with this pesky magic finger and that I had this deep dark secret that no one would ever understand and I’ve only shared it with less than five people because if there’s one thing I learned from my dad it’s that it’s better to be alone and that’s how I lived my life until pretty recently and now it’s not so lonely anymore but I don’t think I’m quite ready to open up to complete strangers about this despite our similarities, right down to the company we keep and our mutual disregard for our last names.”

“I never told you mine,” Loki realized.

“And I never told you mine,” Ned said.

“My old man and I don’t really get along, either,” was what Loki said next.

“All of my problems stem from abandonment issues from when my dad left me in boarding school to start a new family in a new place and left me behind after my mom died,” Ned confessed.

Loki said, “Hm,” and that was all.

A moment of silence. Ned regarded the boy who was so much like him, and his friend in a green dress in the next stool over. Loki regarded the man whom he could be, and hoped to be just as good when he looked in his late twenties. There was something gentle about Ned, which made him want to help him. That, and if anything happened to the Pie-Maker the who shall make the pies? “Like Leah said,” Loki began, breaking the silence, “Cindy Berry just needs to be persuaded to discontinue this line of inquiry. Let us help you with this, Mr. Ned. I know what it’s like to keep a secret to keep someone you love safe.”

Ned thought of Chuck, of the life they have created in Papen County, and felt a warm rush of peace flow from his heart to his extremities. He had to protect their current existence. What more would Cindy Berry ask of him, after he revived her dog from the dead? What power could she wield over him, if he confirmed what she thought to be true, to be true? He needed to, as his associate Emerson Cod would say, "Nip this bitch in the bud."

Being that Ned was a bit less colorful with his words, he merely said, "So you'll help me nip this in the bud?"

"Consider the bud nipped," the child called Loki promised through grinning lips. They shook hands again, and it was like ice curled around his fingers.

.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. I do what I want, welcome to 2013, this has been Yaya writing what she wants to write after marathoning all of Pushing Daisies over the holidays. Thanks.


End file.
